SEPTEMBER 4: NATIONAL EAT AN EXTRA DESSERT DAY
Eat an Extra Dessert Day encourages everyone to do something doctors probably wouldn’t recommend: eat a second dessert. And it can be at any meal: lunch, dinner—if you eat dessert at breakfast, go wild and have two. (And remind us to join you for breakfast.)
The word "dessert" comes from the French word “desservir,” which means “to clear the table.” Fruits and honey were probably the first sweeteners. The universe of desserts was bolstered by the expansion of the use of sugar. Sugar was used in India before 500 BCE. Over the next millennium or so, trade took it to places such as Macedonia and China. It didn’t hit Europe until the 12th century. During the Industrial Revolution desserts began being mass-produced. In addition, sweet delights could be processed and preserved in new ways, expanding their reach and increasing their popularity. Today, there are countless types of desserts available —home-made and store-bought — including cakes, pastries, cookies, pies, pudding (not sure Jello really counts as a dessert), and the ever-available wonderful ice cream.
The Who, Where, and Why of Eat an Extra Dessert Day are unknown. But it gives you the ultimate right — after a scoop of ice cream, a hunk of cheesecake, a slice of pie, or whatever your first choice is today — to choose a second dessert. (You might want to print this out and keep it with you, should the nutrition police stick their long noses in your business.)
SEPTEMBER 5: NATIONAL CHEESE PIZZA DAY
Okay, we know today is Tuesday, not Friday, but nevertheless today is officially National Cheese Pizza Day! True, February 9 is National Pizza Day: a day to celebrate one’s favorite pizza dish. But, National Cheese Pizza Day was born to give special appreciation to cheese pizza. Of course, every pizza deserves its own day for love — the Margherita, pepperoni, olive, mushroom, etc. — which is most likely the reason for National Cheese Pizza Day (although the exact creator and birth date are still a mystery).
The beginnings of pizza aren’t exactly known either, but most pizza scholars (yeah, that’s a thing) date it back to Ancient Greece when people covered bread with oils, herbs, and cheese. Pizza-ish, right? However, the kind of flatbread pizza that is well-known now started in Naples, Italy. There, the cheese used was buffalo mozzarella. Eventually, travel and discovery led to pizza making its way to the new world, which, by the time it got there, could better be described as the new-ish world. 1905 was the date; New York City’s Little Italy, the place. Los Angeles didn’t get this perfect food (protein, dairy, grain, vegetable) until 1939, thanks to the D’Amore family. Pizza’s popularity soared in the US following World War II. Veterans returning from the Italian Campaign led the rise in pizza consumption.
Cheese Pizza has also had an impact on pop culture, with the dish famously being Kevin Mccallister’s preferred choice in the “Home Alone” movies, lthough perhaps nobody loves pizza as much as the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, who became a global phenomenon in the 1990s. Joey Tribianni, the iconic “Friends” character, also introduced the Joey Special in the 1990s, which consisted of two pizzas.
Pizza achieved iconic-dish status in North America during the second half of the 20th century: a popular dish at any party or gathering of friends. In the US, pizzas is beloved, especially cheese pizza. In 1997, it was estimated that the US produced more than 2 billion pounds of pizza cheese. Today the US pizza industry is worth over $40 billion per year.
SEPTEMBER 6: GREAT EGG TOSS DAY
Great Egg Toss Day celebrates the sport of egg tossing. And, just to clarify, we’re talking raw eggs. Great Egg Toss Day takes place on September 6. Why? That was the day in 1981 when Risto Antikainen threw a fresh egg 317 feet, 10 inches, to Jyrki Korhonen. However, there is some debate over the record. Up until 2000, the Guinness World of Records listed the feat being set in 1978 with a throw of 323 feet, 2 inches, in a toss from Johnny Dell Foley to Keith Thomas. But in 2000 Guinness dropped egg tossing from their book altogether. (And that’s no yolk.)
How did all this start?! In medieval Britain, an egg throwing festival was held in churches at Easter. The priest would give out one hard-boiled egg which was tossed by choir boys around the nave of the church and the one who was holding the egg when the clock struck twelve would get to keep it.
The modern version has been around since the early 1900s as a way to get family, friends, and neighbors together for some laughs and competition. The idea is simple: toss an egg back and forth between two people, with each person trying to throw it farther than the other. The winner gets bragging rights. The pair (or pairs) stands about 3 feet apart, and a raw egg is tossed from one partner to the next. Those who catch the eggs without breaking them continue in the game, the others are out. After each successful catch, the players must take one step backward so that the tosses are longer and longer. However, different versions exist. In one, the idea is to toss an egg so it falls on the ground without breaking. This is possible on, for example, grassy meadows. In Germany, children invented a way to spin the egg during the toss so it lands on its tip still spinning. Dutch children play a game called “egg sales.” One child sells an egg to another. The new owner then throws the egg in the grass and if it does not break it must be returned to the seller.
Just one hint: You might want to hose down the area once the game is over. Raw egg on the grass will attract unwelcome animals. And besides, after a few days, well, you know how rotten eggs smell.
SEPTEMBER 7: GRANDMA MOSES DAY
Grandma Moses Day celebrates the talented primitive artist Anna Mary Robertson Moses, better known as Grandma Moses. The observance pays homage to an artist who remains an inspiration to people starting careers late in life. Despite her advanced age, she defied the odds and set out to become one of the most celebrated artists of her time.
Anna Mary Robertson became Anna Mary Robertson Moses in 1887 when she wed Thomas Moses. Self-taught, she painted images from her girlhood: peaceful scenes of farmsteads and rural life. She began painting in her 50s, but only kicked into gear in her 70s. Then, she began selling them at a local drugstore for about $10.
In 1938, art collector Louis Caldor, happened upon the drugstore and bought all her paintings. He was able to include her work in a folk art show at the Museum of Modern Art. And, with that, her career was launched. The following year, her paintings were displayed in New York and began selling across Europe and North America. Moses soon gained a large following across the globe. Her work spread to a larger audience when Grandma Moses paintings were adopted on Christmas cards in 1946. Sometime in the 1950s, her exhibitions shattered worldwide attendance records. She went on to feature on the front cover of LIFE magazine in 1960 when she clocked 100. She would go on to create thousands of paintings before her death in 1961 at the age of 101.
In 1960, when Granma Moses reached 100 years, Nelson Rockefeller — then New York Governor — declared September 7, her birthday, as the official Grandma Moses Day. Today we celebrate the life of an icon and how she has inspired generations to reach for the stars regardless of age.
SEPTEMBER 8: NATIONAL AMPERSAND DAY
National Ampersand Day is celebrated to honor “&.” The ampersand’s origins can be traced back to the Latin word “et,” which means “and.” The letters “E” and “T” in this word were occasionally put together to form a ligature, a character consisting of two or more joined letters. The writer saved time by using the character, with one letter flowing seamlessly into the next — a type of cursive or joined-up writing.
The ampersand has used since the 1st century AD. Most people don’t give much thought to the symbol, but it has a long and illustrious history. Though it is impossible to say when this symbol was initially written down, an early example has been discovered as graffiti on a wall in Pompeii, preserved by the Vesuvius eruption in 79 AD. Tracing the evolution of symbols across time might be a challenge, but with the ampersand, the job has already been done by Jan Tschichold, a typographer born in Leipzig in 1902. Tschichold dedicated an entire study to the evolution of the ampersand in his 1953 monograph The Ampersand: its genesis and development, in which he collected hundreds of examples of it throughout history, charting its evolution from ancient graffiti to the familiar “&” used today.
Into the 19th century, the ampersand was regularly included at the end of the alphabet, being viewed as the 27th letter. The name “ampersand” came from the recitation of the alphabet, which was ended by saying “and per se and.” “Per se” means by itself, so the end of recitation meant “X, Y, Z, and, by itself, ‘and.’” The “and per se and” eventually was slurred together to create the word ampersand.
One of the main ways the ampersand is used in formal writing today is in company names, e.g., Johnson & Johnson or Boys & Girls Club of America. It is sometimes also used in formulas and computer code. Ampersands can be written using many variations of typography.
National Ampersand Day was created in 2015 by Chaz DeSimone of AmperArt, who wanted to “acknowledge & applaud the ampersand.” He chose September 8 as the holiday’s date because he found that when using ampersands in various fonts he could spell out "September 8" using only ampersands.
SEPTEMBER 9: INTERNATIONAL SUDOKU DAY
International Sudoku Day takes place September 9 (9/9). Sudoku enthusiasts will immediately grasp the date’s importance: The goal of the Sudoku game is to fill a 9×9 grid so that each column, row, and 3×3 sub-grid contains all the digits from 1 to 9, making 9/9 is the natural choice. Very logical, which is also appropriate since hardcore logical thinking is Sudoku’s raison d’etre.
Sudoku is based on a number puzzle called “Latin Squares,” developed by an 18th-century Swiss mathematician and is similar to Sudoku in that each row and column had to contain all designated numbers. However, unlike Sudoku, it involved numerals higher than 9 and emphasized solvers’ mathematical skills rather than logic. In 1892, the French newspaper “La Siècle” printed the game and in ensuing years other French papers picked up on the trend with similar games. By the start of WWI, however, those games’ popularity had waned.
Then cometh 1979. Indiana architect Howard Garns published a puzzle of his own invention (at the time named “Number Place”) in Dell Pencil Puzzles and Word Games magazine. That game would become what we know as Sudoku. Garns, however, died before his brainchild became an international sensation. In the meantime, in 1984, Garn’s game had set Japan’s puzzle industry on fire. It took on the name Sudoku, which means “the digits are limited to one occurrence,” along with a fan base of millions of devoted Japanese players. Since the Japanese language doesn’t work well for crossword puzzles, number games are much more popular there. Japanese buy over 600,000 Sudoku magazines.
In 1997, Hong Kong judge Wayne Gould invented a computer program that could come up with unique Sudoku puzzles. He pitched the game as a daily puzzle feature to newspapers in the UK. In 2004, the Times of London and The Conway Daily Sun in New Hampshire began publishing Sudoku puzzles. Since then, Sudoku has become a global phenomenon. In 2013, The World Puzzle Federation made September 9 the official International Sudoku Day.
Today, the game is readily available on smartphone apps and widely printed in papers and magazines. It’s the subject of multiple documentaries and game shows, and even spawned an award-nominated original tune by songwriter Peter Levy. We think it’s safe to say Sudoku isn’t going anywhere any time soon.
SEPTEMBER 10: BLAME IT ON THE LARGE HADRON COLLIDER DAY
Blame It on the Large Hadron Collider Day was created in 2008 to shift blame for losing things from the people who actually lost them, to the Large Hadron Collider. “The Large Hadron Collider probably has your car keys, your missing socks, and your rent money, perhaps sucked into a black hole,” one source notes. The day takes place on the anniversary of the date that the Large Hadron Collider was first fired up in 2008.
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is the world's biggest and most powerful particle accelerator. Located just outside of Geneva, Switzerland, on the border with France, it was built by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN). The idea for it was conceived in 1984, and the final go-ahead for its construction was given a decade later. It took $5 billion just to get it up and running. How does it work? Protons come from a tank of helium gas and are accelerated almost to the speed of light while being directed in two beams down a circular track. The track is nearly 18 miles long and is between 165 to 575 feet below ground. When the protons collide: POW! A huge amount of energy is released. One of the goals of the LHC is to test the Big Bang Theory, by creating the conditions of the beginning of the universe according to that theory. In 2012, the LHC was used to find the Higgs boson particle.
So why would the LHC be given blame? Perhaps it is because of its size—there is a lot of room for things to get lost in a machine that is 18 miles in circumference. Or perhaps blame is given because the LHC had issues just 9 days after its launch. Magnets overheated and melted and caused an explosion of helium gas. The LHC was fixed and upgraded but did not begin running again until 2009. Beginning in 2010, it had to run at half capacity to help prevent another accident from happening.
Spend September 10 (or, really, any day) blaming the Large Hadron Collider whenever something goes wrong, particularly if you can't find something. It's likely your item was sucked in by the LHC and is now inside of it — or a black hole created by it.